WATSONVILLE — If the Mount Madonna School girls volleyball team could craft the perfect senior to lead the Hawks to their first state title since 2007, it would be Mara Peruzzi.

Which is good, because Peruzzi is the young Hawks’ only senior.

“She is honestly the best senior ever,” sophomore setter Savannah Cambell said. “She embraces everyone. She wants it so bad, and she wants us to want it.

“She embraces us and gives us what we need and mothers us and does whatever we need to pick us up.”

Four freshmen, two sophomores and six juniors grace Mount Madonna’s roster. That leaves only one player who will be fighting to keep her high school career alive when the Hawks attempt the seemingly impossible Thursday. The Central Coast Section Division V champions, which represent a school with a total enrollment of 65 — the third smallest in the CCS and one of the most diminutive in the state — will travel five hours north to take on Shasta in the Northern California D-IV playoffs. Shasta, which has an enrollment of 1,446, earned the No. 2 seed and a first-round bye after winning the Northern Section D-III title.

The benefit to having so many young players is that they don’t realize the perceived futility of trying to win the D-IV title with a team so small it doesn’t even field a junior varsity. The drawback, Peruzzi said, is that on a few rare occasions she has to remind them that for her there is some urgency to win this season, because she won’t have another chance.

She had to stare down that fact when Mount Madonna nearly stumbled in the CCS semifinals against Summit Shasta. The Hawks led 2-1 in a back-and-forth match, but the Black Bears gutted out a 25-23 win in Game 4 to force a decisive fifth set.

“I had tears in my eyes when we lost that fourth set,” Peruzzi said. “But we all gathered together and I was like, ‘We can do this. Just put everything out there.'”

Her teammates did, and with a score of 16-14, the Hawks moved into the final, where they won their first CCS title since 2009, when their third-year coach, Erin Mitchell, was a senior.

Many are the reasons Peruzzi’s young teammates listen when she talks.

For one, she’s been in their shoes. Peruzzi also played varsity as a freshman, and she remembers how much of an impact the seniors had on her.

“I looked up to all six seniors. They were my everything,” she said. “I was pretty shy anyway, and I was coming to a new high school, but they were my big sisters. They made me flourish. I wanted to do that for the freshmen this year.”

Secondly, Peruzzi has a father who is a sports psychologist, so she’s well-versed in the power of positive reinforcement. And according to Mitchell, Peruzzi has had a harder time applying that theory to herself than she ever has with her teammates.

“She’s really exponentially grown in self-care and how to talk to herself,” said Mitchell, who added that Peruzzi has always been hardest on herself. “This year, she set such a good example. She really realized the benefit of being OK with errors and working through those instead of holding yourself to such a high standard. I think that because of that, she’s able to see other people in that situation too and really help them as well.”

Peruzzi said she really tries to celebrate the newcomers’ successes when they make them. She also makes a concerted effort to hang out with them on campus and organizes team dinners before every match to promote team bonding. Her teammates with returning varsity experience — Jacobs, Cambell, and junior libero AnMei Dasbach-Prisk — also have done their part to make the newcomers feel more at ease.

“These young girls are adaptable to what we want,” Cambell said, “and we want to make sure we’re all on the same page as far as winning state this year.”

The third thing about Peruzzi is, she isn’t all talk. Peruzzi is among the top 10 in the Monterey Bay area in kills per set (3.7), according to MBayPreps.com. She is also second on the team behind junior Paola Jacobs in total kills (299), digs (285) and aces (30) and leads the team in blocks (15). The outside hitter could probably receive a scholarship to play volleyball in college, but she has committed herself to pursue academics first while possibly playing for an NCAA Division III program.

Right now, though, she doesn’t want to even think about that next episode. She’s four matches away from closing out her career with a state title, so it’s time to rally the troops. The Hawks have already gotten farther than they have in 12 seasons, but Peruzzi denies it is because of her senior leadership or anything special she did.

“This is the best team I’ve ever played with in my entire career,” she said. “Everyone just looks up to everyone.”

Julie Jag joined the Sentinel Sports staff in 2002 and has been the Sports Editor since 2008. During that time, she and the Sentinel Sports staff have won numerous state and national awards for writing, design and multimedia production. Julie loves covering the wide variety of sports Santa Cruz offers, from surfing to mountain biking to basketball. When she's not working, she can be found out on the trails or playing volleyball at the beach.